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[rizwan183]

Hello Everyone!!
I am a master student (last year) currently and passionate about antenna design and RF and microwave design. I want to pursue a PhD degree in this domain for which i have to write my research proposal which must be sufficient for three years of work. I request you all and specially admin to help me pin point the research areas. Thank You

Best Regards,
Rizwan

[helix]

Let me suggest some ideas that specifically have to do with electrically small antennas:

1) Active antenna tuning. This is a hot area for cellular handsets. There are a variety of technologies that can provide variable reactances (mostly capacitive, e.g., Peregrine DCT devices) which can potentially prevent detuning when a handset is placed in different environments. Advantages, disadvantages, and optimality of various combinations of:
1) tuning network topologies,
2) de-tuning sensing techniques,
3) variable reactance devices,
4) different types of antennas, and
5) types of detuning environments
is an area of active research.

2) Non-Foster matching. I think there is some controversy whether it's useful (actually improves SNR in a receiver). A paper I saw concluded that it was indeed useful, however, the authors used an 8dB NF receiver to reach this conclusion (which leaves a lot of room -- about 7dB -- for suspicion). Apparently NFM can be used in transmit-mode as well.

3) Magnetic materials. There is some interesting work dealing with magnetic, rather than dielectric, loading of electrically small antennas. The overall advantages and disadvantages are unclear.

As you can see, all these topics involve something other than pure antennas (matching, electronics or materials). E&M is very old field, and it seems most pure antenna topics have been investigated thoroughly for decades.

[rizwan183]

Thanks alot helix for your useful reply!